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Thursday, 19 November 2009
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It Hasn't Happened Yet
Instead of that I will just post this
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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Essential Fake Reading for Lesbians and Such
This entry is posted in response to schallerbrandon's personal challenge to write my own list of essential readings in philosophy, directly related to his own post on that very same topic. I will also use this post to conclude the wild final chapter of my first year on Xanga.
schallerbrandon is not my "pal" as one horrible old burnt-out victimization addict put it. We only met recently and have exchanged but a few comments. I think he brings a tone of measured thoughtfulness to Xanga concerning heavyweight topics. I'm not sure what he appreciates on my blog, but I don't think it was the poo post, for all its high-brow majesty.
Note: when I write "others" I usually mean that I forgot whatever else I read and/or I read from a compilation or other volume of excerpts.
Who's Out?
First I must dispense with some classic "philosophical" treatises that do not make the dirtbubble cut. Hegel, Kant, Locke and Hume are out. I can only eliminate these writers because I have read them and I find them lacking. Lacking what? Sex, violence, drugs and humor, basically. Especially humor. Future philosophers take note: do not use these writers as models for your manifestos – the world has already taken on an unsustainable mass.Also out: Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Urantia Book and most of tha Bible. I give these mishmashed musings as much credibility as a SoCal grad student tripping mescaline in the desert.
Philosophical Texts
The following works fall into a classical category of occidental philosophical writing.Plato: The Republic; others
I am less impressed by Plato than studying the effect that Socrates had on him. Socrates was a real rock star motherfucker if there ever was one, and Plato never got over that.Solomon: Ecclesiastes
Existential angst in the Golden Age of the Hebrew Kingdom. Nothing else in the Old Testament worth your time.Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Descartes
I suggest you read these guys in excerpts from compilation collections. Other. Trust me, instead of reading the entire work, your classmates drank from a gravity bong and bought their essays from starving writers like me. Descartes is pretty cool, I guess, when he starts tripping out.Nietzsche, Friedrich: Ecce Homo; Human, All Too Human; others
Probably one of the funniest writers ever. If you don't laugh when you're reading Nietzsche you need to take a fucking pill. Seriously. After more than a century and translation from German he still makes a punk-ass Gen-Xer laugh while considering the most essential topics relevant to the human experience. Not to mention he sported possibly the most spectacular mustache ever and he went crazy.Williams, Paul: Das Energi
Dude.Crowley, Aleister: The Book of Thoth; Magick in Theory and Practice; others
Crowley tried very, very hard to decipher the Thelemic message he received and dictated as Liber al Vegis, or the Book of the Law. Some stuff makes sense, some doesn't. Good fucking luck.Fuller, R. Buckminster: I Seem To Be A Verb
Good luck finding a non-bongwater stained copy of this inventive delivery device. There are probably more forthright Fuller doctrines, but this one is as entertaining as they get. Learn about what everyone struggles to ignore.Tha Shizznat
I get my real kicks from sources Asian.
Buddhism: Dhammapada; others
Buddha himself, I mean the Siddhartha Gautama Buddha guy, didn't write nothing. But, because of the purity of his teaching and a generally more civil reception to it, his words and deeds have been transmitted to us in much better shape than, say, those ascribed to Jesus. Don't miss out on the most important message of all time.I Ching or Yi King
Popularly known as a text to accompany divinatory excursions, this is actually a proto-Taoist scripture and guide to right living. Aleister Crowley teaches how to cross-reference with Tarot and Astrological metaphysical contemplation (see above). Authentic Chinese coins not included.Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
If there's a tradition I have more respect for than Buddhism, it's Taoism. This text is for lifetime contemplation, not for one reading. Get one of those little pocket versions. Keep it handy.Upanishads
Feel free to skim.Tatz, Mark & Kent, Jody: Rebirth: The Tibetan Game of Liberation
I think the book is out of print. Play the game here many times. Read the text and learn all about what's really actually going on.Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: tha Gospels
Oi! What's that doing here? Did I ever mention that Jesus was an incarnation of the Buddha? Look it up in the Akashic Records.Mumon: The Gateless Gate
Zen Koans and commentary. I read The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan) translated by Robert Aitken. Be careful with my finger.Dass, Ram: Be Here Now
An eastern philosophy primer for western hippies by an enthusiastic initiate into devotional yoga who used to trip with Timothy Leary. Told from the viewpoint of a man fully immersed in devotional yogic practices. He wrote more cogent, practical works later, but this is the essential document. Highly entertaining, I might add, after smoking one marijuana cigarette.Musashi, Miyamoto: A Book of Five Rings
Written by one badass mofo. There is a reason this is required reading in Japanese business circles. Read it often. "More than anything, you must carry your movement through to cutting him."Ueshiba, Morihei: The Art of Peace
There may be no more important or relevant philosophy/way of life/message than the teachings of Sensei O, the founder of Aikido. Also, read treatments by John Stevens.Fiction
There are some select works of fiction that have at least as much bearing on my perception of this existence as scriptures and philosophical treatises.Goethe: Faust; others
Essential, no?Hesse, Herman: Siddhartha, Narcisssus and Goldmund, Steppenwolf, The Glass Bead Game, Demian
I'm willing to bet more westerners have turned away from Christianity due to Hesse than any other single, identifiable influence. I know he twisted me. Read Hesse and be changed forever.Bach, Richard: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Git yer gull on. All his later books are the same exact story.Brautigan, Richard: In Watermelon Sugar
Maybe I shouldn't be taking cues from a suicidal beatnik. Takes a real close look at what it is we might hope to expect from life.Crowley, Aleister: Diary of a Drug Fiend
Don't let the title fool you – this is not a Black Sabbath album. All about becoming a better person. Also on the list: The Book of Lies, uncanny poetry.Crowley, John: AEgypt Cycle
No apparent relation to Aleister. Four books holding a universe of thought. Read about Giordano Bruno and the Art of Memory in high relief. No really, it's all in there. Plus John Dee, Shakespeare, etc. Also, Little, Big, the one that started it all.Lama Yongden: Mipam
The first fiction novel ever written by a Tibetan Monk. Covers Tibetan culture, religion and philosophy in rich detail. I cannot convey in a thousand words the importance of this work to my life.Rushdie, Salman: The Satanic Verses
Finished not too long ago. I think this book is transcendent. It covers all the bases.
Garcia-Marquez, Gabriel: Love in the Time of Cholera
How many times do you think he can turn that boat around?Anaya, Rudolfo: Bless Me, Ultima
Again, it changed my whole being.Fiction?
Castaneda, Carlos: works
The word is out. Whether or not Castaneda's books, any or all of them, were based on any shred of truth whatsoever, no matter what the case, he was a narcissistic prick. I have come to terms with the fact that I am attracted to his work for the very same reason that I ended up entangled with pathological women. I am susceptible.But there is an undeniable truth in his writing. Particularly compelling are passages that define the way of the warrior, as well as those that describe the energetic composition of our existence. As one critic put it, "We don't need our heroes to be perfect." Crowley, Castaneda, Rushdie, Brautigan, Nietzsche... no shit.
Autobiographies
Some of the most powerful works I ever read are direct and intimate accounts of the personal process. Here are some I have read that made indelible marks on my soul:Malcolm X: The Autobiography of Malcolm X
There is no more important modern account of the transcendental human process than this book. You cannot possibly know what I mean if you don't finish it. Go to Mecca with Malcolm X and come back to face imminent execution.Leary, Timothy: Flashbacks
Please, get the real story. Leary was MVP, Most Valuable Philosopher, of the 20th century.Mingus, Charles: Beneath the Underdog
Jazz.Lemmy: White Line Fever
Rock.Shatner, William: Up Till Now
Captain, oh my captain. Tha Shat.db
EDIT
There are some additional essential reads that I failed to include in my first pass. I also meant to mention a couple of of other things about some the books/authors already listed. I'll try not to get carried away.
More about Aleister Crowley
Reviled. Misunderstood. Prolific. Sensitive. Monstrous. And very, very funny. His autobiography Confessions should have been in the appropriate section above. Expect to read a lot about mountain climbing and not so much about magick. I also can recommend The Psychology of Hashish, which I read recently.
More about Carlos Castaneda
I should point out that it's the collection of his writings I am endorsing, not select volumes. While the first book is possibly the only authentic account, the first three can be taken as a unit while the remaining bunch are the more important expansion of the core concepts. If I had to pick favorites I would say The Power of Silence floored me, much in the same way Journey to Ixtlan did.
The witches from Cleargreen, Castandeda's cohorts/dupes or whatever, also published some interesting accounts of their "apprenticeships." Florinda Donner-Grau's The Witch's Dream and Being In-Dreaming and Taisha Abelar's The Sorcerer's Crossing all carry consistent messages about this system. It is rumored that they, among other Castaneda groupies, committed ritual suicide shortly after his death.
More Reading
Starhawk: The Spiral Path
A seminal primer on modern Wicca.
Gibran, Kahlil: The Prophet
How could I have forgotten this? One of the most beautiful, practical spiritual treatments ever written.
Alli, Antero: AngelTech; All Rites Reversed: Ritual Technology for Self-Initiation; others
And others from the original New Falcon publishing company, notably Christopher Hyatt and Robert Anton Wilson who sought to preserve and expand on Leary's Eight-Circuit Brain model.
Hyatt, Christopher: Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Devices
Step-by-step instructions about how to go completely mad.
Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound
The most sublime Greek drama I have read.
Rand, Ayn: Anthem
Another insufferable genius with a lot on her mind. Props for inspiring Rush's 2112.
Machiavelli, Niccolo: The Prince
Okay fine. It's not that great. schallerbrandon asked about my omission of political treatises, manifestos, etc. Machiavelli is as close as I get, probably because it's more practical than Utopian. Musashi, Lao Tzu, Gibran, Crowley, Nietzsche, Rand and others offer more practical thoughts or principles about social order and governing than Marx. Read my review.Lilly, John C.: Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments
A critical heuristic work.Schaeffer, Frank: Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts
This is the only book of his I have read and I read it a long time ago. Based on recent radio interviews and what I know of him, his process is fascinating. Making Christians think does not make one a popular guy. I had to mention a Schaeffer somewhere. One of modern Christianity's most perplexing and dynamic thinkers somehow manages to transcend his father's legacy.Lewis, CS: The Screwtape Letters
Every Christian's favorite scholar and apologist plays a dangerous mindgame worthy of Aleister Crowley.McKenna, Terence: The Archaic Revival; others
Probably explains my messed up mind or everybody's pretty convincingly.
Carlin, George
I haven't read anything by George Carlin but I'm sure he has some books out somewhere. A new (posthumously completed) autobiography is out now and I will definitely read it. Does anybody remember laughter?
Monday, 16 November 2009
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25 Random Dirtbubble Facts
I failed to jump on the "ask me anything" bandwagon because it materialized right around the time a bunch of hate blew my way. I didn't want to risk finding out how few of you really even wondered the first thing about me. So instead I found a recent entry by GodaiTheRonin with the old "25 Random Facts" thing. I've never been tagged for such a thing, and, thank god, he didn't tag anyone, but instead left an open invitation to participate. Imagine that. It's nice not to be excluded once in a while. Thanks man.
I don't know what the deal is about user tags. As far as I know they're mine to use and yours to follow, ignore and/or delete, but they seem to be a source of inexplicably great consternation. So I won't be following the "25 user-tag" rule here and using that feature even more sparingly from now on (I never really used it too much anyways). I've been tagged a few times and barely noticed. Tag me if you want, because apparently I missed the memo.
Here it goes:
Rules: Once you've been tagged (if you were at all), you are supposed to write a note blog with 25 random facts, habits, goals, or things about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged (unless you don't want to). You have to tag the person who tagged you (or not).
1. I'm a big crybaby, as extensively documented in this blog.
2. I could be anything I want to be. That's what my dad told me, anyways.
3. I am the best writer a lot of people know. So I'm told.
4. I'd rather play music than do just about anything else.
5. I have saved a few lives in my time on Earth.
6. My best friend is not only a Jew, but also a Scot. I wore a kilt as best man at his wedding.
7. I'm still about 5 years old emotionally.
8. Port wine used to be my favorite drink, but now it's second to sake.
9. I have shouted poetry from the tops of abandoned rail cars.
10. Timothy Leary is a hero of mine. I met him once. I also met Harlan Ellison and Steve Tibbetts.
11. There are some things I will never talk or write about.
12. For the right money I can do great design, but it's not fun enough to do for free.
13. Cooking is one of my other passions.
14. Someone crashed into my car and I used the insurance money to see Carlos Castaneda at a Tensegrity Seminar.
15. I used to be a freak for Christian rock bands. Petra, Servant, Rez Band, ArkAngel, etc.
16. I wept with passion at a Kitaro concert.
17. I saw Jane's Addiction play "Three Days" at the first Lollapalooza. Swoon.
18. Corvettes from the 1970s are my favorite.
19. I could live on chocolate.
20. I can get a girl pregnant just by looking at her.
21. Right now a Stone weighs me down.
22. But I am quite certain I can fly, according to the many dreams I've had.
23. I possess great destructive powers that I have never used, nor will I.
24. I was the top singer in high school but something bad happened to my voice since then.
25. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of increased and prolonged suffering.yo
db
Friday, 13 November 2009
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Writing Love on my Arms
Written in response to To Write Love On Her Arms Day (TWLOHA) challenge post that I found on Ampersands_Anonymous' blog.
This has to do with TWLOHA, "a nonprofit organization that deals with addiction, self-injury, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and suicide."
There is some irony for me in this since I was at the helm of a teen suicide prevention public awareness campaign for the state government in 2007-2008. During that time I was surfing on my own cresting tsunami of depression. That wave has not yet reached its full peak. With even more irony I confess that just today I was nearly consumed by such feelings, so perhaps this would be a good time for me to remember why I keep going.
Three things I love about myself:
I am truthful
Also sincere, honest and I don't lie.
This includes the fact that I do not write "fake blogs."I am a freaky hot lover
For all the good it does me.I am becoming a better person
On purpose.db
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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Cry of the Loon
Deep into the thickness of a blackened night we drank the very bad wine and smoked the most awful, resinous leavings of leaves once kind. All potent. All horrid. The crest of the summer of 1986 had passed on into a vibrating fecundity that tickles at the corners of eyes. By then the moon was gone too.
It was my last day on earth and I was celebrating in style.
Eomneon, my best friend then and now, had invited me up to sit on the Rock with him for possibly the very last time. We agreed we should have some of that wonderful Gallo port in a giant glass jug.
On The Rock
The Rock is one among a family of epoch-rounded red sandstone sediment that pokes up sporadically along the crook between the Hogback and the first actual rising slopes of the Rocky Mountains – kin with the very same sediment that made Red Rocks Park Amphitheatre, Roxborough Park and Garden of Gods, all up and down the Colorado Front Range. (The Hogback is the first sheared plate of violated rock directly west of Denver that is unquestionably not a foothill – so named for its resemblance to the spine-side of a razorback hog. I climbed a segment once to confirm that it does indeed peak at an extreme, almost knife-like angle for miles along its length.) The Rock, this particular node of sandstone, is the centerpiece of a posh subdivision where Eomneon's family had been fortunate enough to settle, for a while – until divorce set them asunder. The east-facing slope of it is mild enough to walk over to the lip of the other side: a small cliff with a long, level recess carved into it by the millennia that provided just enough shelter from rain and noonday sun to make it a perfect outdoor hideaway hangout. It's necessary to drop down into it without twisting an ankle. One could easily imagine a Native American brave making camp on the hunt, looking out over the overgrown, nearly impassable marshy swath of reeds and giant grasses and that generous view of the valley and its massive western wall.So that's about the Rock.
My Last Day On Earth
The wine we drank from its large glass jug was sweet like sunset candy and cheap like barato cheap – affordable like the kind Jack drank – to be fair his might've been a tokay but hey, not dissimilar unto – when he was out here forgetting how write nicely and getting ready to die. We poured it into tall kitchen glasses. We swallowed in gulps because there was a lot of it.We had to smoke the pipe scrapings that night because some Republican war pig was in office and pot was ridiculously hard to find. "It's worth its weight in hash" if you can get past the cruel taste.
It was probably my last day on earth. One could never be certain. Tomorrow my cousin would arrive from out of California. Our plans were to step together away from this world of plain scientific and moral descriptions, through the Castanedaean gash between and beyond into the limitless inconceivable. I had a great need to see if it was true what I had been warned about all my life.
I have since learned that every last thing I was ever warned about is true indeed.
If things went well we would not be defending ourselves from packs of dogs in the moonless mornings or evading trailer park denizens or starving in places not so certainly either public or private. If things went well I wouldn't find myself trying to climb a red sandstone cliff wall (the very same stuff already mentioned, only hidden this time just outside Colorado Springs) to reach the nest of noisy crows with the foolhardy hope of feasting upon one. If things went well, we would not soon become a laughing stock among friends and families and have to get food stamps and live homeless in Boulder for a short while before we were at last separated and my cousin went on get beat up, eat from dumpsters and have all his shit stolen. If things went well.
But for the time being, out on the Rock with Eomneon, the night was dedicated to the celebration of my last day on earth.
Being my last day on earth, there were some critical, final matters between me and my great friend that I knew must be settled.
Cheers.
"I admit," I said, "it sure sounds like Fripp playing that solo in Two Hands. I was just going off this article I read once that said Belew was taking more leads."
"That's such a great solo, man," Eomneon said. And I knew he had let it go. At last, even my Jewish friend had learned how to forgive.
Emboldened, I said what was really on my mind, "I know you're thinking about my sister."
He shrugged.
"I'm not saying anything. I mean I don't care and it's none of my business," I continued. "But I don't think she's gonna go for you, man. You need to get in shape."
It was no secret he was looking pretty dumpy by then, all raw pizza dough and pear-like.
Eomneon was gracious, but miffed. "Naw, man. You're wrong."
"All I'm saying."
"Dude." He fished around his fanny pack, pulled out a brass protopipe. "Let's smoke some of this delicious pot resin."
To his credit, at this time Eomneon is probably the most fit, toned individual I know. But I doubt he ever got with my sister.
Shortly thereafter I heard a hideous sound.
A long, shrill, descending shriek that cut through the pitch of night like a madding meat cleaver. Simply awful.
It was horrible. It was the sound of merciless midnight lunacy.
"What. The fuck. Is that?" I asked.
Eomneon looked at me, ever amazed at how little I know. "That's a loon, man."
"A loon," I repeated.
A crazy bird screaming with stone-cold abandon into the heart of my moonless last night on earth.
"Yeah, a loon."
The Cry Of The Loon
"Aw man," I stood up suddenly."What?"
"I gotta go. Let's go." Which basically means what was left of my last day on earth had begun to spin violently in seven directions. We made it up, somehow, in that blackest of summer nights only by the light of stars, over the precarious lip of the Rock and down the east side without incident. Once or twice ambling back toward his home I heard them again.
Terrible nightmare screams!
"Loon?" I asked. "You get that shit a lot out here?"
He only laughed.
We reached his back porch where I tried desperately not to get sick, clutching a beam and hanging my head over the lawn. My stomach was already in my throat and I was only vaguely aware of his dogs coming around to sniff at my ankles and my ass. I wasn't sure which way was up.
"Hey man," I said. Eomneon drew closer. "Hey man, forget about it."
"What?"
Just then the loon cried out to me: a lunatic's wail.
"RALPH!!!" I groaned.
"Ralph?" he asked, but then heard all of my jug wine and whatnot coursing back the wrong way of me and splashing out onto the rocks and grass. He knew what I meant. Stepped back.
"Loon," I gasped finally. "Forget about it."
The spins were already mounting again. After a while I moaned, "Wow man, that loon sounds just like a crazy bitch's scream."
Eomneon, my best friend in the world, agreed, "That's the sound of one nutty lady. You ready for some more wine?"
"Oh no..." Spins spins spins.
Then, again, from out of the deep and unknowable fathoms of night came the loon's horrific sound:
AAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
"RALPH!!!"
It went on for some time just so: the loon screaming at me and me wretchedly retching for Ralph.
I would have to face my last day on earth with a jug wine hangover.
db
dirtbubble
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- Name: dirtbubble
- Birthday: 11/11/1966
- Gender: Male
- Member Since: 11/30/2008
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